Wednesday, 27 November 2013

RWE Shuffles Closer To The Exit

By way of exemplifying our recent comments that RWE might be occupying the bed nearest the door (click on the RWE link in the labels below), they've followed their sale of a portfolio of 770,000 customer accounts by withdrawing from the much vaunted Atlantic Array offshore wind project. The feathered inhabitants of Lundy Island will be much relieved by this non-development.

At 1.2 GW capacity* from 240 turbines, this leaves a serious gap in DECC's hoped-for renewables fleet. I suppose they can try passing round the hat in the far east again. I'm sure they'll find that headlines like 'Miliband declares 20-month energy price freeze'** are helpful in this cause.

______________________* Recall, however, that Teesside Power alone (gas-fired, of course) was rated at 1.875 GW, and was built in just 2 years. By way of an update to my earlier post that it was due to close shortly, I can report (with a tear in my eye) that the bulldozers came on site this week. The plant has been sold for scrap (sic). It is gone.

** Yesterday I attended a learned seminar on energy policy with an expert panel of all sorts: greens, investors, financiers, climate scientists. Gratifyingly, every single one declared that Miliband was off his head, and deeply dishonest to boot. It may yet be the policy screw-up I immediately assumed it would be

Happy to hear about those learned types who think that Miliband is "off his head" as well. I was beginning to think that I was the one who had lost it, given the (generally favourable) mainstream press response and (purported) public reaction.

...I'm still stunned by what I learned while arguing with a lefty friend when the 'policy' was announced - Miliband is an Economics PhD who has taught at Harvard...

Really makes one wonder at the value of 'Economics', 'PhDs' and 'Harvard'.

"Riffgat has a cosmetic defect: the wind farm is still missing part of its power line to the mainland. For the time being, instead of producing energy, Riffgat is actually consuming it. To prevent the rotors from corroding in the salty air, they have to be supplied with electricity produced with diesel generators"

cosmetic ? sounds more like a cosmic defect to me

Andrew - HG Wells, GB Shaw and all the other Fabian eugenicists would be delighted

there is an irony, however: as you hint, A&E will be the place with diesel back-up (great for emissions, that) - but easily overwhelmed, as you say

"He went on to graduate from the London School of Economics with an MSc in Economics.[13]"

The rest is true.

BTW my wife _does_ have a Phd in economics and has taught at Moscow University... prior to the sort of economics she learned losing credibility in Russia (though not the LSE). Her summary of an Ed Ball's economic speech was "bollocks".

And "bollocks" as a summary of any Ed Balls speech is both a technical response, and more to the point, accurate. His regular appearances on Radio 5 in the morning, in which he likes to namecheck the presenter again and again are sickening. That they are allowed to then turn into long Party Political Broadcasts on behalf of the Labour Party is another matter altogether. Yet equally sickening. Who will rid us of this turbulent nitwit?

The grouting problem doesn't seem that serious for new offshore turbines, as it seems easily fixed with "Shear keys" - lumps of metal in the grout to take most of the load.

Early offshore turbines didn't use this technique, they were bolted down. The grout was a cost & time saving method, and not including shear keys was a further cost saver.

Apparently the use of Shear keys and grout is common in the oil rig industry for decades (although the direction of load characteristics is different so not exactly the same), so rather a bo-bo leaving the pins out on turbines - due to incorrect numerical modelling.